You Can Claim Your Nintendo Switch Username Now

Please, no one claim "xXx_RickmanGruber_xXx" before I do.

By
Joe Skrebels

Prospective Nintendo Switch owners can now register a User ID for the console.

Inside the Account Settings page for a Nintendo Account, there is now a "User ID" section - hit the edit button and claim your chosen title. If you haven't logged in for a little while, you may be prompted to change your password before you get to claim a name.

If it seems confusing, it sort of is. Your Nintendo Account is separate from your Switch ID, but is intrinsically linked. Your Switch ID is, essentially, a new version of the NNID you may have created for your Wii U or 3DS, and is completely separate.

Joe Skrebels is IGN's UK News Editor, and his usual 11-character username is, according to Nintendo's maths, under six characters, so he can't have it. Go figure. Follow him on Twitter, where he's allowed that name.